Breaking news
Formula 1
Force India says "mistakes" allowed McLaren to beat it
Force India boss Otmar Szafnauer says that mistakes in the last few races of the Formula 1 season allowed rival McLaren to beat it in the standings.
Adam Cooper
Edited: Nov 28, 2018, 4:36 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Sergio Perez finished eighth in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, while an oil leak – believed to be from a pipe unrelated to Mercedes – led to an eventual retirement for Esteban Ocon.
The Silverstone-based team had to forfeit all its constructors' championship points after it changed ownership, starting again from zero at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Despite that, Force India finished 10 points shy of McLaren, and just four ahead of Sauber, after strong scoring by Charles Leclerc in recent races boosted the Swiss team's total.
"I think sixth was possible, but we just made some mistakes in the last few races," Szafnauer told Motorsport.com.
"Singapore was a big one, and we had a brake failure in Mexico. So that cost us sixth.
"There were points in the race today when we were mathematically ahead of McLaren, as before we pitted we were running fifth and sixth, but you've got to wait until the end.
"We're happy-ish. I think from where we were in Spa, sixth was achievable, but seventh is not bad. In Spa we were last, so to come back to seventh was pretty good."
Szafnauer also paid tribute to Ocon, who put in another feisty drive on his last outing with the team.
"He had a great race. He had some great battles with [Max] Verstappen again, clean ones, and I think at one point he avoided Verstappen running into him.
"Had he stayed on his natural line, Verstappen would have hit him. We'll miss him, but he won't be gone forever."
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Wolff says Bottas wants to "disappear" to help F1 recovery
Next article Strategy Report: How the same pit call led to different outcomes
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Adam Cooper
RB: Tsunoda “mentally on a different level” in 2024
Formula 1
Formula 1
Japanese GP
Apr 10, 2024
RB: Tsunoda “mentally on a different level” in 2024
Andretti planning F2 and F3 entries to promote US talent to F1 team
Formula 1
Formula 1 Apr 10, 2024
Andretti planning F2 and F3 entries to promote US talent to F1 team
Andretti F1 team formally opens new Silverstone facility
Formula 1
Formula 1 Apr 10, 2024
Andretti F1 team formally opens new Silverstone facility
Latest news
2027 Formula E drivers and teams: The line-up so far
Formula E
FE Formula E 2 h
2027 Formula E drivers and teams: The line-up so far
Kimi Antonelli meets Italian president Sergio Mattarella
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1 2 h
Kimi Antonelli meets Italian president Sergio Mattarella
How Qatar red flag helped Johann Zarco put Barcelona crash behind him
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Qatar GP
3 h
How Qatar red flag helped Johann Zarco put Barcelona crash behind him
Feature
Discover prime content
Top 10 F1 cars of the 1970s
Formula 1
By Kevin Turner
Top 10 F1 cars of the 1970s
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe